Finished Sentences
by Jaala
Summary: Finally free of Ohtori, Anthy searches for and finds her prince, Utena. On the way, she has to get used to life as a normal person again, and Utena has the unenviable job of waiting.


**AN: Well, I got tired of reading "Anthy find Utena" fics where an 80 year old Anthy finds a depressed 80 year old Utena 65 years after they leave Ohtori. So here's a much happier "Anthy finds Utena" fic. No warnings. PG rating is for some blood in the middle. Thanks to my sister who read it over and pointed out some things for me to fix. Enjoy.**

_A hundred swords piercing her skin, drilling into her. Utena would have screamed if she could, but she was beyond noises. The pain was so intense. So real. Every part of her was crying in silent agony._

Then it was all over.

She had become a prince.

****

"Hi, Tenjou-sempai. I'm Ai." 

Utena smiled and waved at her roommate. She had short brown hair with large black eyes, and she wore overly large wireframe glasses. Utena glanced around her new room. She was a freshman at a nondescript high school. Just because one is a prince, doesn't mean one should stop studying. She turned back to Ai.

"Just call me Utena, okay?"

Ai smiled and nodded. Then she flopped down onto the bottom bunk and looked Utena up and down. "What's with the uniform?"

"It's..." Utena paused. There really was no reason to wear it anymore. Except for her... "It's kind of personal."

Ai seemed taken aback, "Oh. Sorry."

"No, it's okay. So what goes on at this school?" Utena sat down on the floormat.

Ai laughed. "Nothing. There's never any excitement or anything. There's some clubs, but they're just the standard stuff."

"And the Student Council here?"

"Well, they manage student activities, you know? That's about it. Nobody pays much attention to them. Pretty boring, right?"

Utena shook her head, "It sounds perfect."

She turned her head to look out the window. She was in a dorm at the edge of campus and could see down to the street below. She wondered if she would come. She had to. Utena really had no way of finding her.

Utena was waiting.

****

The world was a very big place. And Anthy had no idea where she would find Utena.

She'd be at a school, most likely. Hopefully somewhere close by. With any luck, Anthy would be able to find her.

"Most likely", "hopefully", and "with any luck". There was no certainty anymore. But it was better than being trapped in that farce of a world where reality wasn't even real. In that place, she hadn't even had those words. All she'd had was the despair and the thought that she'd be trapped in that hell forever. Until she met Utena. Utena had given her hope, had been the only person who truly cared for her.

She supposed most people would think she hated Akio for what he did to her. But she couldn't hate him. He had once been Dios, whom she had loved. And she knew that it hurt him to lose that. If anything, she felt his pain and his sorrow. She truly hoped that he would find his way out of Ohtori on his own. But she couldn't dwell on it. She had other tasks to take care of. She had a life to start. A life that had been put on hold for so many years, she'd lost count.

Anthy walked through the small town. It was the first place she'd come to upon leaving Ohtori. It didn't have much, and Anthy knew that there was no way Utena would be found here. In fact, Utena probably went back to her own home town, though Anthy had no idea where that was. Her knowledge of the world outside of Ohtori was frighteningly small.

She heard a rustling from her suitcase and paused to open it a crack, "Chu-chu, it's alright. Do you want some fresh air?" She gently picked up the monkey and put him on her shoulder, then continued walking.

She came across a bus stop and sat on the bench beside an older man. He was reading a book, and ignored her when she sat down. She looked around, but couldn't see any bus schedule. She didn't want to wait forever for a bus.

"Excuse me, sir," she said to the man. He glanced up from his book, seemingly a bit surprised that somebody was talking to him. "When does the bus arrive?"

The man looked down at his watch. Anthy wondered how long he'd been waiting. "Uh...15 minutes or so. It's sometimes late."

"I see. Do you know where it goes?"

"Don't you?" The man looked surprised that somebody was waiting for a bus without even knowing its destination. Anthy supposed that it was somewhat strange.

"I'm not from here. I...I'm looking for someone in another city."

"Which city?"

Anthy shook her head, knowing how pathetic this must sound. "I don't know."

"Well, this bus is one of those major ones, you know. Runs just about everywhere. I'm taking this one to Tokyo, myself. Just want to visit."

Tokyo. That was a large city, wasn't it? Anthy supposed that she could try to find Utena there.

"Who are you looking for?" The man put down his book.

"Somebody very special."

"A lover?"

Anthy paused. She loved Utena. She had loved Utena for a long time. Even before she'd left Ohtori. She had thought that Utena loved her, too, but she wasn't sure. Utena was noble, and would go to great lengths for someone she considered to be a friend. Perhaps that's all Anthy was to her. Another friend. 

Utena had tried to tell her something in that coffin. She had reached out her hand, yelling at Anthy to grab it. Anthy hadn't known that Utena would be freed if she did. She thought the swords would condemn her to the same fate that she had had to suffer. She finally decided to do it, though, as Utena wouldn't give up. Utena had said something about the two of them. That someday, they would...

Anthy wished that she had been able to hear the rest of that sentence.

Realizing that she hadn't answered the man's question, Anthy smiled at him, "Perhaps."

The man looked down at his book as if considering whether to just pick it back up and start reading again. He looked up and extended his hand. "Kosayu Seki."

She took it, "Himemiya Anthy."

"Pleasure to meet you, Himemiya-san." 

Anthy was taken aback for a second. She wasn't used to people calling her "san". In fact, she was used to people hating her from the get-go, one of the many punishments the Rose Bride was forced to undergo.

"Er, is that your pet?" Kosayu-san looked at Chu-chu, who cocked his head and made a cooing noise.

"This is Chu-chu. He's my friend."

"Is it a mouse?"

"No, it's a monkey."

"I see..."

At that moment, the bus pulled up. They both stood, and Kosayu-san beckoned for her to go on ahead of him. She nodded in thanks and boarded the train to Tokyo.

****

"Do we have to plant roses?" Utena looked at the bulb in her hand.

Her teacher laughed, "Are you allergic, Tenjou-san?"

Utena shook her head, "It's just really ironic, that's all."

"Huh?"

"Never mind."

Utena made a mental note to stop making strange comments like that. The school was starting to think she was a little eccentric, and for more reasons than just the uniform. Somehow, Utena didn't feel as connected to them as she probably should. She felt older, even though she knew she was the same age. However, how many of them had sacrificed themselves for another person? Had been seduced by Evil, itself? Had participated in who knows how many duels? Probably none. Perhaps Utena had a reason for feeling older than them.

"Can I plant mine by yours?" A girl kneeled down beside her. Utena remembered her name was Keiko. She nodded and smiled to her. "Roses always remind me of my grandparents. They always had fresh roses around their house. I'd go there during the summer and I'd be surrounded by them." Keiko laughed. "Funny what makes you nostalgic, right?"

"Yeah, roses bring back some memories for me, too."

"Where'd you move from? I don't think anybody's heard."

"I moved from a school far from here. I actually grew up here, but moved away. I came back for high school."

Keiko leaned over closely to her and whispered conspiratorily, "I think Hideki-sempai likes you. He's been looking this way the entire time."

Utena's eyes widened and she looked to her side, just in time to notice the boy turn his head away. She turned back to Keiko, grinning, "Maybe he likes you."

Keiko laughed, "Me? No way! I have a boyfriend!"

Utena was about to tease her some more, when one student came running out of the building, screaming for a teacher.

Whenever there's an emergency at a school, everybody goes running toward it. Good luck to the teachers to try to fight their way through. Utena knew that it would be best to stay back, but she had an insatiable curiosity for this stuff. Plus, at Ohtori, a scene like that would probably involve Himemiya somehow. She had to remind herself, once again, that this wasn't Ohtori.

She didn't have to run far. In the lobby area immediately inside the doors, a boy stood, leaning against the wall breathing heavily. There was another boy on the ground beside him. And blood. A lot of blood. Utena felt sick to her stomach. She had never seen blood at Ohtori. She'd almost forgotten about it.

The boy who was left standing seemed to be panicking as students crowded in to see what was going on. Utena ran over to him and grabbed his hands before he could bolt. He dropped something to the floor, and it clattered loudly. His eyes were darting from side to side, and he was already crying.

Utena shook him. "Calm down!" She looked around, "Where's a teacher?!" She called. The boy struggled in her hands, but she shook him again, keeping him in a firm grip. "We need a teacher! Let them through!"

Finally, her teacher was able to break through. He assessed the situation and kneeled down to check on the boy on the floor. "Keep a hold of him, Tenjou-san."

She nodded. The boy had stopped struggling and was sagging against the wall. She pushed him against it so that she could support his weight. She risked a look down. So much blood.

Her teacher took out a cellphone and called for an ambulance and a police car. He looked up to make sure that Utena still had the other boy, then he proceeded to administer first aid.

Utena waited.

****

"Are you visiting family here in Tokyo?" Anthy asked as she and Kosayu-san exited the bus.

He shook his head, "No, just travelling. I don't really have any family."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he handed her her luggage before grabbing his own.

Anthy turned to look at Tokyo. She'd never been here. It was so...crowded. She didn't really have a reason to fear crowds anymore, but, somehow, it was hard to shake the feeling that they were all mad at her and were going to attack her. She fought the urge to run away.

"Himemiya-san, are you okay?" She felt a hand on her elbow, and realized she must have been shaking.

She smiled and nodded, "Just fine."

They walked down the streets of Tokyo together, looking out for a cheap place to stay. Kosayu-san seemed to enjoy the company, hesitant though he may have been at first.

"What do you do for a living?" She asked him.

"I'm a writer, actually. Not a very good one, but I'm working on it. You?"

"I'm still a student."

He gave her a skeptical look, "You don't act like a student."

"I'm 15." Anthy knew that was a stretch. Her body hadn't aged when she was the Rose Bride past the age of 15. However, she knew her mind was much older. She'd been trapped for many years at Ohtori.

"That's strange. You have a wisened air about you. It's hard to believe that you're just 15." He laughed, "I feel a bit like a dirty old man, now that I've been escorting you places."

"Actually, you're one of the first decent men I've ever met," she tried not to think about Akio, still stuck at Ohtori. Chu-chu made a noise beside her ear, telling her that he knew what she was thinking about.

"What?" He was about to inquire further when he was distracted by an electronics store they were passing by. Anthy stopped and turned to the stack of TVs they had displayed, turned to a news channel. "My god," Kosayu-san muttered.

_"A high school boy was critically injured today at Sakoya High School, a boarding school in the small town of Tokkeida. Reports say that he had gotten into a fight with another student, when the other student pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed him. His attacker was apprehended by another student before he could run away."_

Anthy watched, half-interested, while the story droned on. It showed some shots of the police arresting a boy with blood stains down his shirt. Then Anthy froze. In the background, she was sure she saw a pink-haired girl wearing a black uniform. It had to be...

"Utena."

****

Utena carefully arranged the vaseful of roses on the windowsill. They weren't the ones that the class had planted. Those hadn't grown, yet, but she'd gone and bought a half-dozen to display. Ai looked up from her homework.

"Those are pretty." Ai said.

"I think so," Utena picked up one rose and smelled it, just for the nostalgia trip. She carefully put it back.

"Is it from one of your admirers?"

Utena flopped down on the bed. Ever since she had helped with that one fight, everybody thought she was the coolest thing ever. The story had spread and grown to where people thought that she wrestled the boy to the ground and wrenched the knife out of his hand in order to defend a teacher. It was getting a little tiresome.

"No, I just bought them for myself."

"That's kinda lonely."

"Maybe."

Utena stared up at the ceiling, hands behind her head. She wondered if she should just give up hope. After all, who knew if Himemiya would even be looking for her? She might have stayed with Akio at Ohtori. It was a depressing thought. Utena tried to shove it out of her mind, but it remained there. Himemiya wasn't coming. She wasn't even looking for her. Utena turned her face to the side so Ai wouldn't see her and tried not to cry. What was the point of even leaving Ohtori if she hadn't been able to bring Himemiya with her?

****

"You didn't have to come," Anthy told Kosayu-san again. He'd been insistent on going with her to Tokkeida.

"I want to. Something tells me you have an interesting story." 

"And you're going to write a book about me?" Anthy joked.

"You never know."

Despite the light-hearted conversation, Anthy's heart was racing. She was here. In Utena's hometown. Where Utena was. It had been a long time since she'd seen her. And even then, she had been trapped as the Rose Bride, unable to truly be herself. She wondered if Utena would be happy to see her.

Anthy paused as they passed a Catholic church. Missionaries must have set it up a long time ago.

"It's pretty," Koyasu-san said when he noticed her looking at it.

"Yes." She agreed.

"Tell me your story."

"You wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

She shook her head, "I don't want to dwell on it. I need to let it go and move on."

He paused, as if considering. "Then tell me. That way, somebody knows, and you won't ever have to worry about it again."

Anthy turned to him. He was right. All this time, she had been dwelling on the past. She realized that everything she saw led her to thoughts about Ohtori or Akio or Utena. Every comment made her think about her life as the Rose Bride. That wasn't right. Hanging on to the past would only trap her like it trapped all those people at Ohtori. Perhaps, by telling somebody else, she could finally be rid of it. Could finally move on.

"Please, Himemiya-san." He said.

"Call me Himemiya. I don't think we need to be that formal anymore."

"Okay, Himemiya. Only if you call me Koyasu."

She nodded and looked away at the church. Then she told him her story.

****

_Someday, the two of us will..._

Utena paused as she noticed what she was writing in her notes. She was tempted to just put her head down and go to sleep during the class, but she restrained herself. She crossed out what she had written and tried to pay attention to the lecture. It was getting harder and harder. 

She turned to look out the window. She didn't feel like she belonged here. She had made friends, but there was something missing. She'd grown so used to having Himemiya around. Having her gone was like missing a part of her home.

The bell rang for lunch, interrupting Utena's thoughts. Keiko jumped up and grabbed her hand for Utena to eat lunch with her and her friends. Utena went along with them, trying not to think about Himemiya.

****

"I guess we part ways here, then, Himemiya." Koyasu said.

They stood outside of the high school. Anthy looked at it nervously. She nodded. He understood that this was something she needed to do by herself.

"You're leaving?" She asked.

"You've given me more than enough inspiration," He smiled. "I was down on my luck. No family. Lost all my friends. And my writing wasn't doing too well. Meeting you, Himemiya...if you can get through what you went through, then I certainly can make it through my little slump."

"It wasn't like that."

"So you say," He looked down. "I'll be going back to my home now. Perhaps we can stay in touch?"

She smiled at him, "I'd like that."

He gave her his address and, with a final goodbye, he walked away. Anthy watched him for a moment, then turned back to the high school. She took a deep breath and went inside.

****

"Didn't you bring anything to eat, Tenjou-kun?" One of the girls asked.

Utena shook her head, "Not hungry." She stretched out on the hill beside Keiko and the rest. They all fussed over her for a bit, then went on to their lunches. Utena closed her eyes and wondered how long a nap she'd be able to get if she went to sleep right then.

"Who's that? She's not wearing a uniform."

"She's pretty. Maybe she's lost."

"She has a suitcase. Maybe she's a transfer student."

Utena opened her eyes to see who they were talking about, then sat up straight.

She was beautiful. That was Utena's first thought. She'd never seen Himemiya look so carefree. Her hair had always been tangled when it was down, but now it was neat and shining. The glasses were gone, too, and Utena couldn't recall her eyes ever looking as bright as they did now. She was wearing a pink dress, making it easy to see her on the green grass of the school. And she was looking right at Utena.

Utena stood up. Her friends asked where she was going, but she just waved to them as she walked toward Himemiya. She almost looked like a completely different person, but Utena knew she would always be able to recognize her.

She reached her and stared at her, at a loss for what to say. She hadn't really thought of what to say to Himemiya if she saw her again. Even though that was the one thing she wanted most in the world, she hadn't even prepared a welcome or anything.

Apparently, Himemiya hadn't thought up anything to say, either, as they just stared at each other for a few moments. Then Himemiya dropped her suitcase lightly onto the ground, and grabbed Utena's hands, clasping them tightly in her own. She took a step closer to Utena, so that they were almost nose-to-nose.

"I found you, Utena," she said softly. Then she released her hands and hugged her.

Utena gladly returned the embrace, not noticing the crowd of students watching. It didn't really matter. As long was Himemiya was with her, she didn't care what happened.

All too soon, Himemiya released her and stepped back. She looked around, apparently noticing all the people for the first time. "Utena, do you have a room?"

Without even thinking about missing class, Utena nodded.

****

Anthy set her suitcase down on the floor by the door as she looked around Utena's room. Chu-chu hopped on top of Anthy's luggage and flopped over as if taking a nap. She noticed the roses on the windowsill first. She turned to Utena, who had been closing the door behind her.

"Roses?"

Utena blushed, "Well, I sorta missed you. That's all."

"I missed you, too, Utena." Anthy didn't know what to do. She was with Utena. Did anything else matter?

"You're calling me 'Utena' now? That's good."

Anthy smiled and nodded at her. "What do we do now?"

Utena was looking down at her feet, but she looked up at Anthy with a strange look. She took a step closer to her and leaned down. "Himemiya, I – "

"Anthy. Please call me Anthy."

Utena smiled, "Anthy. I want to stay with you. Maybe I don't fit into this world anymore, but as long as you're with me, I don't really care."

Any doubt that Anthy may have had about Utena's feelings for her disappeared. How could she have second-guessed her like that? Utena had been prepared to die for her. Of course Utena loved her.

Anthy touched Utena's cheek with the palm of her hand, reaching her head up. She kissed her. Something she'd wanted to do, but had never been able to while at Ohtori. The kiss was short, but Utena wrapped her arms around Anthy and held on. Anthy remembered during the duels, Utena would do this to protect her. She knew that as long as Utena was holding her like that, she was safe from whatever dangers there might be.

"Utena?"

"Yeah?"

"What were you going to tell me back at Ohtori? When the swords were coming?"

Utena held her tighter, tucking Anthy's head under her chin. 

"Someday, the two of us will..." Anthy started, trailing off.

"Someday, the two of us will shine together. We're going to shine, Anthy."


End file.
